


Master Class

by Fox_the_Reaper



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Cooking, Fluff, Gen, I'm sensing a theme here..., Papa Wolf Hasegawa Zenkichi, SPOILERS for Strikers, Zenkichi is the most dramatic of cooks, and one very vague reference to Royal, and so is thinking about the future, life is hard folks, yet again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 20:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_the_Reaper/pseuds/Fox_the_Reaper
Summary: Answering the question should have been easy.  Sure there were a few options, but Ren knew what he wanted out of life... didn't he?Alternately; a cooking lesson turns into a discussion about the future.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren & Hasegawa Zenkichi, Hasegawa Zenkichi & Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	Master Class

Zenkichi stared down his adversary, the edge of his blade glinting under the fluorescent lighting. It was kind of ugly; a pale grey with darker grey veins running along its sides and an even darker tail. He had never handled anything quite like this before, but he had his orders and he would make sure to follow them.

He didn’t have to target the tail; Ren had said that would be counterproductive. Instead he had to split it straight down the middle. Just enough to get at the vein running through its center.

Carefully, so he didn’t cut all the way through, Zenkichi slid the point of his knife into the shrimp and levered out the undesirable portion. He had to resort to pulling out the pieces with his fingers, and he wrinkled his nose. That was kind of gross. But he had managed. One raw shrimp deveined and… eleven more to go.

Zenkichi stared down at his solitary shellfish before risking a glance at the other end of the counter, where Ren was busily working his way through debearding a handful of mussels, a pile of finished shrimp resting in a bowl near his elbow. The teen looked up and smiled.

“Need some help?”

“No! No, I got this.” Zenkichi hastily grabbed another from his own pile, peeling off the shell and working the halves apart with his knife. He may not be anywhere near as fast as Ren, but he wasn’t incapable. It was simply that years of takeout didn’t really make for good practice putting together homemade meals. A little instruction and he _could_ do it; he just needed to take his time.

They worked in silence for another couple of minutes, Ren graciously waiting for the inspector to finish cleaning both shrimp and mussels before walking him through the steps of preparing a squid. He shook his head in amazement. The kid made it look so easy. Zenkichi couldn’t quite say the same. While each step was objectively simple, he was still having a hard time, and taking at least three times as long as the teen for each task.

“Geeze,” he couldn’t help but say, “Who knew this much work went into making food?” And they hadn’t even gotten to the actual _cooking_ yet.

It would be worth it though, to see Akane’s face. Neither of them had the opportunity to eat many home-cooked meals in a long time. The girls’ curry during the Thieves’ brief stop in Kyoto had been the first in weeks. Months, if you didn’t count Zenkichi’s own fumbling attempts. Ren, Haru, and Futaba all insisted that he shouldn’t.

{Which, rude. His food wasn’t _inedible_. Maybe it didn’t taste as good as restaurant fare, but it had everything necessary for a balanced diet!

Ren blandly informed him that boiling vegetables leeched out most of the nutrients, and that sugar did not, in fact, cancel out too much salt. Zenkichi had grumbled a little but didn’t argue further. He was getting free lessons after all.)

Ren huffed out a little laugh, flipping to the next page in a well-worn notebook. “It’s not so hard once you get used to it. You just need more practice.”

Zenkichi hummed an affirmative, setting aside his prepared seafood and wiping down his cutting board. He risked a peek into the notebook before touching the chicken thighs waiting in the fridge.

Ren’s tidy scrawl covered the pages in recipes, dotted here and there with tips and edits from where the kid had obviously modified the original instructions. Cooking times, temperatures, adjustments to spice levels and quantities. The occasional question left next to a blank space to record the results of a particular modification. Zenkichi whistled.

“You really take this seriously, don’t you?”

Ren flushed faintly. “Well, I enjoy it. It’s… nice, to take something loved and make it your own. And it’s satisfying to share that with the people you care about.”

How incredibly sincere. Zenkichi smirked. “Being able to eat good food helps too, I bet,” he said, finally moving on to the next set of ingredients. “You ever think of becoming a chef?”

Ren paused, hand stilling on the dial to the stove for half a heartbeat before flicking it on. “Well, not really?” He looked like he was working up the nerve to say something else. It took a few moments before he tacked on, “I was thinking maybe politics?” and cringed.

Zenkichi’s brow rose entirely of its own volition. He could not think of any career that would suit this kid less. As flashy and in-command as he could be in the Metaverse, in the real world Ren tended to shy away from attention. Not because he was shy; simply because he found a lot of attention distasteful.

Zenkichi tried to imagine the kid sitting through meetings and slaving over policies and press conferences and fought back a shudder. Ren might be good at it; as smart and well-connected as he was, he probably would be, but....

“You sure you would be happy with that?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Ren shrugged. “I mean, it’s not all I was thinking about.” He fiddled with a bottle of oil, drizzling a little into the pan. “There’s also counseling. A lot of people have said I’m good at listening and helping them work through their problems… Or maybe medical school? I’ve always admired Dr. Takemi...” he trailed off.

And nowhere in there had Ren spoken about what he wanted for himself. Zenkichi frowned, considering, before it clicked.

“You know you don’t _have_ to pursue some kind of grand career changing the world or saving people, don’t you?”

“Uh,” Ren started, clearly caught off-guard. “That’s not… I mean…”

Zenkichi set down his knife and made a point of turning off the stove. The food could wait; it wasn’t like Ren was focusing on instructing much anymore anyway.

“Ren,” he asked seriously, “what do _you_ want?”

The kid had the good grace to consider the question with equal severity. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I guess… I never really thought about it? I like helping people, so I kind of assumed I'd just... keep doing it?” He smiled ruefully. “If I had to pick anything I’d say I want to keep… to keep being Joker. But that’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“Not stupid,” Zenkichi rebutted firmly. “Unrealistic, sure, but not stupid. It’s something you loved and were good at; it’s only natural you’ve gotten attached to that part of your life.” And hell, at the rate these kids attracted trouble, he’d probably get the chance to dive into the Metaverse again sooner or later. But that was neither here nor there.

Ren shook his head, frustrated. “It just… doesn’t feel like _enough_ , you know? You said ‘chef’ and that… that sounds great. It does. But I know I could do _more_. I don’t want to just… stop helping people when I’m not acting as a Phantom Thief.”

“You fought damn hard to make sure we could all return to the real world as it should be; three times, no less. That’s more than most people can expect in a lifetime. Several lifetimes, even. If there were some kind of quota for helping people I think you’d have surpassed it by now,” Zenkichi said dryly.

Ren’s lips tugged downward in a quiet frown.

Zenkichi sighed. “There are more ways to help people than by devoting your entire career to it, Ren. Don’t try and push yourself into something that will make you miserable. You have plenty of time to consider what you want out of life, and there’s nothing saying you can’t change your mind later on.”

“I guess,” he replied unenthusiastically, but he was looking at the mess of ingredients cluttering the counter with something like wistfulness creeping into his expression.

“Think about it,” Zenkichi insisted, flicking the stove back to life. “For now though, why don’t you get back to helping _me_ figure this out?”

Ren snorted. “Well, for one, if you keep the heat that high you're going to burn your food and scorch the pan,” he informed the inspector playfully, reaching over to twist the knob back to a more reasonable temperature. They worked comfortably for a few minutes, Ren offering gentle instructions and corrections here and there as they finally got food into the pan.

“Hey Zenkichi?” he said quietly, “Thanks.”

“Sure.” The inspector let himself settle back into the rhythm of dicing before adding, “Though you know, the offer’s still open. Think about it: Officer Amamiya Ren of the Tokyo Police Depa-”

“Ugh, no! You keep those heathen thoughts to yourself!”

Zenkichi laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Papa Wolf, part II. Also, points if you can guess what they're making from the whole... four ingredients I listed, lmao.


End file.
